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Lysis
I like to see you blushing, Hippothales, and hesitating to tell Socrates the name; when, if he were with you but for a very short time, you would have plagued him to death by talking about nothing else. Note: 204d I suppose that he must be young; Note: 204e Ah, Hippothales, I said; what a noble and really perfect love you have found! Note: 205a although he is a lover, and very devotedly in love, he has nothing particular to talk about to his beloved which a child might not say. Note: 205c the wise lover does not praise his beloved until he has won him, because he is afraid of accidents. There is also another danger; the fair, when any one praises or magnifies them, are filled with the spirit of pride and vain-glory. Note: 206a among them was Lysis. He was standing with the other boys and youths, having a crown upon his head, like a fair vision, and not less worthy of praise for his goodness than for his beauty. Note: 207a But do you think that any one is happy who is in the condition of a slave, and who cannot do what he likes? Note: 207e if you want to mount one of your father's chariots, and take the reins at a race, they will not allow you to do so—they will prevent you? Note: 208a And do they trust a hireling more than you? and may he do what he likes with the horses? and do they pay him for this? Note: 208b And do they esteem a slave of more value than you who are their son? And do they entrust their property to him rather than to you? Note: 208c Surely, I said, this is a strange thing, that a free man should be governed by a slave. Note: 208c But in things of which we have no understanding, no one will trust us to do as seems good to us—they will hinder us as far as they can; and not only strangers, but father and mother, Note: 210c Neither can your father or mother love you, nor can anybody love anybody else, in so far as they are useless to them? Note: 210d That is the way, Hippothales, in which you should talk to your beloved, humbling and lowering him, and not as you do, puffing him up and spoiling him. Note: 210e although I am now advanced in years, am so far from having made a similar acquisition, that I do not even know in what way a friend is acquired. But I want to ask you a question about this, for you have experience: tell me then, when one loves another, is the lover or the beloved the friend; or may either be the friend? Note: 212b Do you mean, I said, that if only one of them loves the other, they are mutual friends? Yes, he said; that is my meaning. But what if the lover is not loved in return? Note: 212b Then which is the friend of which? Is the lover the friend of the beloved, whether he be loved in return, or hated; or is the beloved the friend; or is there no friendship at all on either side, unless they both love one another? Note: 212c Then they are not lovers of horses, whom the horses do not love in return; nor lovers of quails, nor of dogs, nor of wine, nor of gymnastic exercises, who have no return of love; no, nor of wisdom, unless wisdom loves them in return. Note: 212e And, if so, not the lover, but the beloved, is the friend or dear one? Note: 213a Yet how absurd, my dear friend, or indeed impossible is this paradox of a man being an enemy to his friend or a friend to his enemy. Note: 213b poets have to say; for they are to us in a manner the fathers and authors of wisdom, and they speak of friends in no light or trivial manner, but God himself, as they say, makes them and draws them to one another; Note: 214a For the more a bad man has to do with a bad man, and the more nearly he is brought into contact with him, the more he will be likely to hate him, for he injures him; and injurer and injured cannot be friends. Is not that true? Note: 214c the good are like one another, and friends to one another; and that the bad, as is often said of them, are never at unity with one another or with themselves; for they are passionate and restless, and anything which is at variance and enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or harmony with any other thing. Note: 214d the good only is the friend of the good, and of him only; but that the evil never attains to any real friendship, either with good or evil. Note: 214d But say that the like is not the friend of the like in so far as he is like; still the good may be the friend of the good in so far as he is good? Note: 215a And he who wants nothing will desire nothing? Note: 215b Have I not heard some one say, as I just now recollect, that the like is the greatest enemy of the like, the good of the good?—Yes, Note: 215d the most opposed are the most friendly; Note: 215e Well, but is a just man the friend of the unjust, or the temperate of the intemperate, Note: 216b Then neither like and like nor unlike and unlike are friends. Note: 216c 'the beautiful is the friend,' Note: 216d if there be such a thing as friendship or love at all, we must infer that what is neither good nor evil must be the friend, either of the good, or of that which is neither good nor evil, for nothing can be the friend of the bad. Note: 216e the good alone is the friend of that only which is neither good nor evil. Note: 217a Then that which is neither good nor evil becomes the friend of good, by reason of the presence of evil? Note: 217b an ointment or colour which is put on another substance. Note: 217c Suppose that I were to cover your auburn locks with white lead, would they be really white, or would they only appear to be white? Note: 217d But when old age infuses whiteness into them, then they become assimilated, and are white by the presence of white. Note: 217d And when anything is in the presence of evil, not being as yet evil, the presence of good Note: 217e those who are already wise, whether Gods or men, are no longer lovers of wisdom; Note: 218a friend is the friend of some one; is he not? Note: 218d He has a motive and object. Note: 218d Then that which is neither good nor evil is the friend of the good because of the evil and hateful, and for the sake of the good and the friend? Note: 219b Is not this rather the true state of the case? All his anxiety has regard not to the means which are provided for the sake of an object, but to the object for the sake of which they are provided. And although we may often Note: 220a Then would be clearly seen that we did but love and desire the good because of the evil, and as the remedy of the evil, which was the disease; Note: 220d For they are called dear because of another dear or friend. But with the true friend or dear, the case is quite the reverse; for that is proved to be dear because of the hated, and if the hated were away it would be no longer dear. Note: 220e Then, even if evil perishes, the desires which are neither good nor evil will remain? Note: 221b Then, even if evil perishes, there may still remain some elements of love or friendship? Note: 221c But not if evil is the cause of friendship: for in that case nothing will be the friend of any other thing after the destruction of evil; for the effect cannot remain when the cause is destroyed. Note: 221c But now our view is changed, and we conceive that there must be some other cause of friendship? Note: 221d Then if you are friends, you must have natures which are congenial to one another? Note: 221e Then, I said, the conclusion is, that what is of a congenial nature must be loved. It follows, he said. Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love. Note: 222a